On November 25, 1960, three Dominican sisters, political activists known as the Hermanas Mirabal, were brutally assassinated for opposing the Trujillo dictatorship. The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women remembers this day.

Since 1981, as a tribute to the Mirabal sisters, as well as global recognition of gender violence, the date 25 November has been marked by women’s activists as a day against violence against women. Following the adoption of the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women by resolution 48/104 of 20 December 1993, the United Nations General Assembly, by resolution 54/134 of 17 December 1999, designated 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, inviting governments, international organizations and NGOs to organize activities on the day designed to raise public awareness of the problem of maltreatment of women.

All 3 sisters were natives of the Dominican Republic and were fevently opposed to the cruel dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. There is a fourth sister who died on February 9 of 2014, her name is Beglica Adela Dede Mirabal-Reyes, known as Dede. She did not have an active role in working against the dictator, Trujillo. The tale of the Mirabal sisters is an ongoing legacy of bravery and compassion in order to save the lives of many many people in the Dominican Republic. They defied the flow of conformity and stood out as National Heroines.

An Introduction and Brief History of the Mirabal Sisters

The Mirabal sisters grew up in an affluent family and were will cultured and educated women at a time when most women did not receive a good education. It is important to recognize what the Mirabal sisters did for their country and how their past actions still affect and influence people today in the Dominican Republic.

The Mirabal-Reyes family was a prosperous family from a town in Salcedo called Ojo de Ague on the north coast, near to La Vega. Patria the eldest of the Mirabal daughters was born in 1924 to Enrique Mirabal Fernandez who married Mercedes Reyes Camilo (mum is also known as Chea). Don Enrique was a successful farmer and merchant who was born in one of the small towns in Santiago called Tamboril. He owned his own farm, shop, cofee mill, meat market and rice factory. His wife Dona Chea was also from a middle class family in Ojo de Agua.

Patricia Mercedes Mirabal

Born on the 27th February 1924, Patria was given her name as her birth date coincided with the anniversary of the Dominican Republic’s Indepedence Day. Patria means fatherland. Patria had an affinity with painting and art and at the age of fourteen she was sent to the Colegio Inmaculada Concepcion in La Vega, a Catholic Boarding School. Her sisters Dede and Minerva also went. When she was seventeen Patria married a farmer named Pedro Gonzalez and had four children, Nelson Enrique, Noris Mercedes, Raul Ernesto and Juan Antonio (who sadly dies 5 months after his birth). Patria supported her sister Minerva in her anti-government efforts and opposed the dicatator Trujillo and in their attempts to overthrow Trujillo had all their property and home seized by the government. Patria was concerned for the future of the country along with all of the county’s children.

Patria was famous for saying “We cannot allow our children to grow up in this corrupt and tyrannical regime, we have to fight against it, and I am willing to give up everything, including my life if necessary”.

Minerva Argentina Mirabal

Minerva born March 12th showed signs of her great intelligence from a very early age. By the time she was just 7 yrs old she could recite the verses of French poets. She was also at age 12, sent to the Catholic Secondary School Inmaculada Concepcion with her sisters Patria and Dede. Like her sister Patria, she too appreciated and enjoyed art especially that of Pablo Picasso, her main love was of writing and reading poetry and favoured that of Juan Pablo Neruda. Minerva attended the University of Santo Domingo and it was there she met her future husband Manuel (Manolo) Tavarez Justo. They married on November 20 1955 and moved to Montte Cristi where they had 2 children, Minu and Manolito.

In 1949, she was taken to the capital and slong with her mother Dona Chea, placed under house arrest, meanwhile her father DonEnrique was being held in the Fortaleza Ozama. Minerva’s political influences included changes occuring in other Latin American countries, the Luperion Invasion (14 June Movement)and the revolution in Cuba.

Minerva admired the then up and coming revolutionary, Fidel Castro and would often recite his famous words of, “Condem me, it does not matter history will absolve me!” She was also influenced by her Uncle who had a pharmacy in Jarabacoa.

Minerva was famous for saying “….it is a source of happiness to do whatever can be done for our country that suffers so many anguishes, it is sad to stay with one’s arms crossed…”

Maria Teresa Mirabal

The youngest of the Mirabal sisters, Maria Teresa was born on October 15 1936, and she also attended Inmaculada Concepcion with her sisters. Mathematics was Maria’s domain and in 1954 she graduated from the Liceo de San Francisco de Macoris and then went to the University of Santo Domingo to study Math. On February 14 1958 she married Leandro Guzman an engineer and one year later on February 17 she gave birth to their daughter named Jaqueline. She looked up to her sister Minerva and admired her actions and later became involved in her sisters political activities. On January 20 1960, she was detained at a military base in her home town of Salcedo but later freed the same day. Two days later however she and her sister Miverva were arrested and taken to La Cuarenta. La Cuarenta was the infamous torture prison, they were later transferred La Victoria prison.

They were freed on February 7 1960, a short while later on the 18 March she and her sister Minerva were once again taken back to the dreadful La Cuarenta after having been sentenced to 5 yrs for “threatening the security of the State”. This sentence was eventually reduced to 3 yrs on appeal and the sisters were freed on August 18, 1960.

Maria was famous for saying “…..perhaps what we have most near is death, but that idea does not frighten me, we shall continue to fight for that which is just..”

The Murder and Assassination of the Mirabal Sisters

The Butterflies posed a huge threat to Trujillo and his regime as their popularity amongst their fellow countrymen was at an all time high especailly after their recent release from jail. In Trujillo’s arrogance there was nothing else to do but to dispose of this threat to his nation and government. He thought if the sisters disappeared then so would their actions and beliefs from their followers. No matter how many times he had thrown them in and out of prison, no matter what he took away from them, as during their persecution Trujillo had stolen their property, land, houses, left their families with nothing, the three sisters Minerva, Maria and Patria refused to give up their fight for deomcracy and civil liberties to everyone on the island. In fact the more he took, the greater strength they gained.

Trujillo had many weaknesses and one of them was young women. He had built many houses and mansions through out the Dominican Republic and in each one he had a mistress. When he had first met Minerva way back in 1949, he had set his sights upon her and now all these years later, her spurning of him still angered him bitterly. He had planned to seduce her during the famous party where her whole family left in San Cristobol many years ago. With this in mind, and even the Catholic Chruch opposing him he decided that he would assassinate the three women, with his reign faltering what else was there for him to do?

Trujillo planned their deaths meticulously and carefully chose who he would use to carry out the murders. He had to choose men who he could ask to commit such a crime and also men who had the stomach to commit such a crime.

He chose Victor Alicinio Pena Rivera who was Trujillo’s own right hand man, also Ciriaco de la Roas, Ramon Emilio Rojas, Alfonso Cruz Vlaeria and Emilio Estrada Malleta all members of his secret police force.

The Murder of the Mirabal Sisters

Minerva, Maria and Patria were all returning from Puerto Plata on a heavily raining evening after visiting their spouses in jail. They had travelled from their home town of Salcedo with their driver Rufino de la Cruz. It was November 25 1960. As they drove back home along the main highway between Puerto Plata and Santiago their Jeep was stopped by the secret police as planned by Trujillo. There is no way of knowing exactly what happened that night however a narrative still exists from Ciriaco de la Rosa, one of the henchmen.

This is an exert from the Dominican Encyclopedia 1997 CD ROM…

He says..After stopping them we led them to a spot near the chasm where I ordered Rojas to pick up some sticks and take one of the girls, he obeyed the order and took one of them, the one with the long braids, that was Maria. Alfonso Cruz took the tallest one, that was Minerva, and Malleta took the driver, Rufino de la Cruz. I ordered each one of them to go to a sugar cane grove on the edge of the road, each one seperated so that the victims would not sense the execution of one another, I ordered Perez Terrero to stay and see if any one was coming who could find out about the situation. That is the truth of the situation. I do not want to deceive justice or the state. I tried to prevent the disaster, but I could not because if I had he, Trujillo, would have killed us all….

It was in this manner that the Mirabal sisters and their driver Rufino de la Cruz were clubbed, beaten and then strangled to death alongside a mountain road between Puerto Plata and Santiago.

Patria was 36 years old, Minerva was 34 years old and Maria was 24 years old.

After they were killed their bodies were then put back into their Jeep, the Jeep was then pushed over the side of the cliff at La Cumbre to make it appear like an accident had taken place in the bad weather. Everyone knew it was Trujillo though that had ordered the murders.

This act had far reaching consequences for Trujillo and was the last straw for the majority of Dominican people. It was now the beginning of the end for Trujillo.

There is a general opinion (not carried out through scientific research) that the German language is full of English. This is not a particularly striking view, considering there are words such as ‘chillen’, ‘chillaxen’, ‘bloggen’ however is this assumption that German has a lot of English leading to a culture of not wanting to learn a language?

From having studied the German language and culture for ten years, including living there for prolonged periods of time, I would not agree with the notion that the German language is overrun with English words. There are indeed words that have found their way into the language, owing mainly to the fact that they are modern day words, such as ‘liken’, ‘googeln’, ‘posten’. On the flip side, this shows the fluidity and flexibility of language. The near-universality of social media, predominantly from the USA comes hand in hand with the fact that English words have crept into other languages, with German merely being one of the examples.

With this influence of English words into the German language, it is not difficult to imagine that people may become put off from learning languages. This might seem an extreme proposition, but it can be combined with the notion of ‘everyone speaks English so they will understand me’. I would, for the most part (with exceptions) argue that learning the language could place someone in a better position. Yes, there may be words with English influence or be just English words, but it is the bundle of advantages that comes from the learning.

English in the German language also poses those “false friends”. A big example is the German ‘Handy’. In English, we do not refer to out mobile as a ‘Handy’. It is the case that there is the word handy in the English language, but the meaning is that of being useful. Far different from a mobile. Also, the English ‘actual’ does not equate to the German ‘aktuell’. The German word ‘aktuell’ means current, for example in ‘aktuelle Nachrichten’ (current affairs).

It is clear that there is influence in the German language from English, but that is a universal situation, and not retrained to German. Je mehr man lernt, desto erfolgreicher man wird.

When I arrived in Germany about 15 years ago, German was largely free of outside influence but this has changed dramatically in recent years. It has become riddled with English imports. In some fields, this is not so surprising. For example, the internet revolution started in America and many of the terms have inevitably found their way into German, e.g. eMail, Browser, onLineBanking, surfen etc. However, some English computer terms are used at the expense of perfectly good German alternatives. Chatten instead of plaudern, downloaden instead of herunterladen, even the word Computer itself instead of Rechner. This has also led to some bizarre-sounding German; no-one seems to know how to conjugate downloaden, for example. On chat sites, I have seen the following forms used:

Hast du die Datei downloadet?

Hast du die Datei downgeloadet?

Hast du die Datei gedownloadet?

English words have not only found their way into the field of computing, however. They are prevalent in the field of advertising, particularly so in the advertising of luxury items. No manufacturer sells a car these days without reference to airbags and cockpits, limousines and caravans, spoilers and Styling. The following is a listing of some of the English used in advertising slogans in one edition of Der Spiegel, a weekly news magazine.

There’s no better way to fly (Lufthansa)

The classic of the future (perfume)

The energy is yours (perfume)

Tomorrow’s classics (watch)

Elegance is an attitude (watch)

Tested for the unexpected (watch)

Take a walk on the red side (champagne)

Active driving, active safety (car)

We hear you (computer)

The whole world in one bank (investment bank)

More life, most money (investment bank)

Time is money (investment bank)

English is ubiquitous not only in magazine advertising but also in TV commercials. The following are two examples from investment banks. (Interestingly, the words are spoken with a clearly German accent. They have not used a native English speaker or a German with perfect English to say them.)

The future. Together. Now.

Are you ready for investments? (the English of which seems slightly suspect to me)

In general, it can be said that the English used in the adverts is readily understood, and is used to convey the impression of a global player (another English German expression!); i.e. a company that is well-established in international markets. Compare this with the only use of German that I know in English advertising: Audi’s Vorsprung durch Technik. Here there has been no attempt to choose an expression that native English speakers are likely to understand.

A very interesting group of words that has entered the German language are those that are based on English words but not used by native English speakers. The most obvious recent one is the Handy (for mobile or cell phone). Other such words are twen, meaning a person between the ages of 20 and 30, and pullunder for what the English would call a tank top.

The influence of English has become so strong that most Germans now sing Happy Birthday to each other in English!

Germany is undergoing one of its periodic bouts of angst over the seemingly unstoppable spread of Denglish, an Anglicized hybrid that purists believe is corrupting the national language.

Like the better known Franglais, it is characterized by extensive borrowings of English words for which, in many cases, there are perfectly good native equivalents.

Deutsche Bahn, the national rail network, reignited the debate this week by starting a campaign against the inflationary spread of English and pseudo-English terms among its employees.

It issued staff a booklet of German words and phrases that should henceforth be used in preference to the corresponding Anglicisms. Out go the railway’s information “hotlines” and its “call-a-bike” service, to be replaced by more Teutonic equivalents.

English borrowings are sometimes seen as adding a touch of cool to the otherwise mundane.

Adoption of Denglish has also been particularly prevalent in business and marketing, giving rise to such horrors as “Inhouse-Meeting für Outsourcing-Projekte.”

The Germans don’t always get it right. For them, a cellphone is a “handy,” an apparent Anglicism unknown in the English-speaking world. A “sprayer” is a graffiti artist, and “peeling” means a body scrub.

Snappy German dressers, like their French counterparts, have been wearing a “smoking” — a tuxedo — for years.

But the spate of more modern borrowings is sometimes viewed as indicative of a sinister cultural imperialism on the part of the so-called Anglo-Saxon world.

The British Council, which promotes English-language study abroad, perhaps enhanced that perception when it mischievously asked its German Twitter followers on Wednesday to name their favorite Denglish word.

The German Language Association warned two years ago that German could become a “peripheral” language if steps were not taken to protect it from foreign invasions.

“German has been losing its importance for 100 years,” Holger Klatte, the organization’s spokesman, told The Guardian. “Particularly in the areas of technology, medicine, the Internet and the economy, English is becoming ever more important.”

Like France’s language guardians, German purists may be fighting a losing battle against international English. The results of past efforts to rid the language of foreign words had mixed results.

The words “Fernsprecher” for telephone and “Fernsehen” for television are survivors of a Nazi campaign to rid the language of its Latin element.

All languages are enriched by foreign borrowings and none is more of a jackdaw than English, a happy jumble of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Old French to which hundreds of words have been added from around the world.

Native English speakers tend to be more relaxed than others about adopting foreign words, which they learn naturally from an early age, even before they get to kindergarten.

Some people claim that the words above all mean the same thing, but they don’t. Even the term “Denglisch” alone has several different meanings. Since the word “Denglis(c)h” is not found in German dictionaries (even recent ones), and “Neudeutsch” is vaguely defined as “die deutsche Sprache der neueren Zeit” (“the German language of more recent times”), it can be difficult to come up with a good definition. But here are five different definitions for Denglisch (or Denglish):

Denglisch 1: The use of English words in German, with an attempt to incorporate them into German grammar. Examples: downloaden – ich habe den File gedownloadet/downgeloadet. – Heute haben wir ein Meeting mit den Consultants.*

Denglisch 2: The (excessive) use of English words, phrases, or slogans in German advertising. Example: A recent German magazine ad for the German airline Lufthansa prominently displays the slogan: “There’s no better way to fly.”

Denglisch 3: The (bad) influences of English spelling and punctuation on German spelling and punctuation. One pervasive example: The incorrect use of an apostrophe in German possessive forms, as in Karl’s Schnellimbiss. This common error can be seen even on signs and painted on the side of trucks. It is even seen for plurals ending in s. Another example is a growing tendency to drop the hyphen (English-style) in German compound words: Karl Marx Straße vs Karl-Marx-Straße.

Denglisch 4: The mixing of English and German vocabulary (in sentences) by English-speaking expats whose German skills are weak.

Denglisch 5: The coining of faux English words that are either not found in English at all or are used with a different meaning than in German. Examples: der Dressman (male model), der Smoking (tuxedo), der Talkmaster (talk show host).

Some observers make a distinction between the use of anglicized words in German ( das Meeting = anglicism) and Denglisch’s mixing of English words and German grammar ( Wir haben das gecancelt. ), especially when German equivalents are shunned. Although there is a technical difference (and a symantic one: Unlike “Anglizismus” in German, “Denglisch” usually has a negative, pejorative meaning.), I think such a distinction usually draws too fine a point; it is often difficult to decide whether a term is an anglicism or Denglisch.

Language Cross-Pollination

There has always been a certain amount of language borrowing and “cross-pollination” among world languages. Historically, both English and German have borrowed heavily from Greek, Latin, French, and other languages. English has German loan words such as angst, gemütlich, kindergarten, masochism, and schadenfreude, usually because there is no true English equivalent.

But in recent years, particularly following the Second World War, German has intensified its borrowings from English. As English has become the dominant world language for science and technology (areas that German itself once dominated) and business, German, more than any other European language, has adopted even more English vocabulary. Although some people object to this, most German-speakers do not. Unlike the French and Franglais, very few German-speakers seem to perceive the invasion of English as a threat to their own language. (Even in France, such objections seem to have done little to stop English words like le weekend from creeping into French.) True, there are several small language organizations in Germany that see themselves as guardians of the German language and try to wage war against English — with little success to date. English terms are perceived as trendy or “cool” in German (English “cool” is cool).

English Influences on German

But many well-educated Germans shudder at what they view as the “bad” influences of English in today’s German. Dramatic proof of this tendency can be seen in the popularity of Bastian Sick’s humorous bestselling book entitled Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod (“the dative [case] will be the death of the genitive”). Sick’s 2004 bestseller (another English word used in German) points out the deterioration of the German language (“Sprachverfall”), caused in part by bad English influences. The success of the first book brought about two sequels: Folgen 2 und 3, Parts 2 and 3, “Neues/Noch mehr aus dem Irrgarten der deutschen Sprache” (“new things/even more from the German-language maze”).

Although not all of German’s problems can be blamed on Anglo-American influences, many of them can. It is in the areas of business and technology in particular that the invasion of English is most pervasive. A German business person may attend einen Workshop (der) or go to ein Meeting (das) where there’s eine Open-End-Diskussion about the company’s Performance (die). He or she reads Germany’s popular Manager-Magazin (das) in order to learn how to managen the Business (das). At their Job (der) many people work am Computer (der) and visit das Internet by going online.

While there are perfectly good German words for all of the “English” words above, they just aren’t “in” (as they say in German, or “Deutsch ist out.”). A rare exception is the German word for computer, der Rechner, which enjoys parity with der Computer (first invented by the German Conrad Zuse).

But other areas beside business and technology (advertising, entertainment, movies and television, pop music, teen slang, etc.) are also riddled with Denglisch and Neudeutsch. German-speakers listen to Rockmusik (die) on a CD (pronounced say-day) and watch movies on a DVD (day-fow-day).

Languages have always had to change. It is this that keeps them. New words have been and continue to be developed to allow for the expression of new concepts and ideas and cross-cultural interaction often results in the adoption of words from other languages. With modern transport and globalisation, this historically slow process has been rapidly accelerated. English is the lingua franca of the ‘Western’ World and its prevalence has presented some new challenges. This is very much the case in Germany, where the influx of English words, referred to as ‘Denglisch’ (a portmanteau of the German words ‘Deutsch’, meaning German and ‘Englisch’, meaning English), is a sensitive subject.

Some people argue that the use of English words in German, such as sale, meeting, company, lifestyle, etc is simply not necessary as there are already equivalents for these words in German (Schlussverkauf, Besprechung, Firma and Lebensstil respectively). Others argue that the use of such words gives a sense of international openness and that this is important for German business. English is also important to many young Germans who support international openness, but also feel that English words often allow themselves to more effectively express themselves. For these youths, English words just sound ‘cool’.

What about Germans who don’t have an understanding of English? Broadly speaking, younger Germans have at least some understanding of English words and they are regularly bombarded with English media, which they have been able to understand and to some extent assimilate. This is not the case for the older German generation. Their grasp of English is often very limited and the use of English words in retail and media leaves many feeling excluded and angry. So there is a generational divide, but it is important to note that younger generations have often used slang words which cannot be understood by the older generation and the whole point of this has been to create a kind of linguistic space which belongs to them and cannot be penetrated by older generations. This revolution also helps to keep languages alive – the invention of new concepts and the expression of new nuances should ultimately lead to the enrichment of a language. The difference here is that the lingustic generational divide is maintained not by young Germans revolting against the older generations, but by German businesses and government who wish to prosper in a globalised economy in which English is the dominant language. This can leave old people behind and many feel it will ultimately alienate younger Germans from their cultural and linguistic roots.

Another issue is that the Denglish phenomenon does not only involve the use of loan English words, but also to German interpretations of originally English words. These so-called pseudo-anglicisms often lead to confusion, particularly when it comes to translation. For example, the word Parking in German does not refer to the act of somebody parking a vehicle, but instead refers to a car park or place where someone would park a vehicle. Another example is the word Smoking – in German this has nothing to do with the action of smoking something, but instead means dinner jacket or tuxedo. These false friends can be problematic, but most reputable companies that provide translation services keep track of these words and can ensure there are no crossed wires – a relief to any German company hoping for success in any English-speaking market!

So what is to become of the German Language? It is spoken by over 120 million people worldwide, so is there really a chance it could, as some argue, become so flooded with English words that it will become no more than a mere dialect of English? This is the key question in the Denglisch debate, but the answer is not a simple one. English is likely to continue to dominate as the lingua franca and will continue to influence the German language. The amount of influence English will have, although currently heavily influenced by a globalised economy and both economic and political ambitions, will ultimately be decided by the people that speak German and use it to express themselves. Older people in Germany will for now have to put up with Denglish and can only try to ensure that the younger generations don’t forget their roots by promoting interest in German language and culture. If German can be enriched by some English words, it can only be a positive thing – as long as a healthy balance is maintained.

It seems hardly a sentence is spoken in Berlin that doesn’t have an American English word in it.

One word that especially grates — and I confess to a certain bias, having learned German as a toddler when it wasn’t so Americanized — is a word pronounced “sogh-ee.” Or, as Americans say it, “sorry.”

“Sogh-ee” your package is late.

“Sogh-ee” your hot water is off.

“Sogh-ee” we can’t help you.

Anatol Stefanowitsch, an English linguistics professor at the Free University of Berlin, says it makes sense that many German businesses have adopted that word.

“I mean, ‘sorry’ is quite a useful way of apologizing because it doesn’t commit you to very much. It’s very easy to say ‘sorry.’ The closest equivalent would be Entschuldigung, which is, ‘I apologize,’ ” Stefanowitsch says. “That’s really like admitting that you’ve done something wrong, whereas with saying ‘sorry,’ you could also just be expressing empathy: ‘I’m so sorry for you, but it has nothing to do with me.’ ”

“Sorry” is one of more than 10,000 American words Germans have borrowed since 1990. Language experts here say English is the main foreign language that has influenced German over the past six decades. This cultural infusion is pervasive, with English used by journalists, by scientists and even at the highest levels of government.

“Germany doesn’t really have a very purist attitude to language — unlike France, where you have an academy whose task it is to find French alternatives for borrowings; or if there is a new technology that needs to be named, then the academy will find a name,” Stefanowitsch says.

Even purely domestic enterprises like the German rail system are getting into the English game. Christian Renner, waiting at Berlin’s main station for a train home to Frankfurt, says it’s useful to know English words if you want to find a waiting area.

“I’m not sure if calling it a ‘lounge’ is better than using the German word ‘warteraum,’ ” Renner says. “I guess it’s more modern or hip.”

Also confusing to some German passengers is the word for the main ticket “center,” instead of the German word “zentrum.”

To some language experts, like Holger Klatte, the widespread Americanization of German is problematic. Klatte is the spokesman for the German Language Society, which has 36,000 members worldwide.

“Languages do tend to affect one another, but the influence of English in Germany is so strong that Germans are having a hard time advancing their own vocabulary,” he says.

Klatte says that can be a problem for Germans who may not know any English.

“The second world war and Nazi times have led Germans to downplay the importance of their language,” he says. “Unlike the French, Finns and Poles — they promote their languages a lot more than we do.”

Stefanowitsch believes this linguistic angst — a word that migrated from German to English — is overblown. He says a quarter of all German words are borrowed from other languages. That’s more than what’s found in Mandarin Chinese, but far less than the 40 to 80 percent seen in English, he says.

Plus Germans integrate the words they borrow — for example the suffix “-gate,” as in Watergate, which was voted last year’s Anglicism of the year in Germany. Stefanowitsch says it has been used, among other things, to describe the NSA spying scandal on the German chancellor as “Merkel-gate.”

“Borrowing doesn’t mean that a language loses its vitality. It’s an addition of creativity. No language has ever disappeared because it borrowed words,” Stefanowitsch says.

But he says there are pitfalls to overdoing Americanized German.

Take, for example, the word “handy,” which is what Germans call their cellphones. Stefanowitsch says people here assume it’s an English word, and it may have come from the word “handheld” to distinguish it from car phones when cellular technology was relatively new.

He says the danger to such made-up words is that Germans could end up using them when trying to speak actual English.

It is the mother tongue of Goethe, Schiller and Brecht, a language still spoken by more than 100 million people worldwide. But an increasing number of linguists now fear German is under mortal danger from a torrent of anglicisms flooding into the nation’s vocabulary.

The German Language Association (Verein Deutsche Sprache, or VDS) fears that German could become a “peripheral” language if steps are not taken to protect it from foreign invasions.

Each month the VDS updates its Anglicism Index, which reports new English words which have crept into common parlance and then suggests home grown alternatives. The latest entries include “follower”, “live-stream” and “socializing” which ought really, it says, be “Anhänger”, “Direkt-Datenstrom” and “Geselligkeit”. Other unwelcome new additions are classic examples of the mongrel known as “Denglisch” – “business breakfast” and “eye catcher”, neither of which are used by native English speakers.

“German has been losing its importance for 100 years,” said Holger Klatte, spokesman of the VDS. “Particularly in the areas of technology, medicine, the internet and the economy, English is becoming ever more important. There are not enough new German words being invented, and many people are shut out of the conversation because they can’t understand it.”

He warned: “The German language is not only losing its influence but will also at some point become a peripheral language.”

Germany is classed as one of the world’s major languages, and is the most widely spoken first language in Europe. The VDS has more than 33,000 paying members and is growing.

There are certain situations nowadays where it is “nigh on impossible” to speak German in Germany, said Klatte – “for example if you work in marketing, there just isn’t the vocabulary”. The German word for marketing, incidentally, is das Marketing.

Klatte’s own pet hate, he said, was seeing shops displaying signs promising “further reductions” – “there is no need at all for them to use the English in that situation”.

The VDS would like to see Germany follow France’s example and do more to protect and nurture the language. German public radio should be obliged to play a higher percentage of German-language music, said Klatte, and the government should introduce a law forcing manufacturers to include German information on product labels.

“We have a special responsibility to protect our language because it is a language of particular cultural importance,” he said. “Our language is our expression of our culture and we have a duty to nurture it and ensure its future development.”

Not everyone in Germany sees English as a threat. In the south-western spa town of Wiesbaden, the VDS’s rival, the Society for the German Language (Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache) is of the firm belief that German is not at risk of marginalisation, even less, extinction.

“Contrary to common belief, only 1%-3% of the average German’s vocabulary of 5,000 words is made up of anglicisms,” said Andrea-Eva Ewels, the society’s managing director. “We don’t see English as the enemy. We’re of the opinion that English can enrich our language, just as many other languages, for example French and Latin, have influenced German over history.”

But she admitted that many Germans were unhappy with the anglicisation of their mother tongue. “We did a survey in 2008 and 39% of respondents said they did not like anglicisms,” she said. Interestingly, Germans in the east were more unhappy with the anglicisation of their language – 46% objected compared with 37% in the west.

Despite the onslaught of English, some attempts are being made to stem the tide. In January, Siemens announced it would use fewer anglicisms in future. The VDS has noisily criticised the company for years, complaining last year that there was no need for them to refer to “renewable energy” when “erneuerbare Energie” would do just as well, ditto “Smart Grids” (intelligente Stromnetze) and “Healthcare” (Medizintechnik).

Last year Germany’s transport minister, Peter Ramsauer, banned his staff from using a string of anglicisms, including “Laptops”, “Tickets” and “Flip-charts”.

The German language is under threat. That’s the view of Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democrats party, which wants to change the country’s constitution to include German as the national language.

Although some interpreted the centre-right CDU’s move as an attack on Germany’s Turkish minority, it seems the invasion of English provided a more likely impetus. The debate is an on-going one. For years German linguists have despaired at the flood of incoming English words and the mixing of the two languages which has become known as ‘Denglish’; ’shoppen’, ‘chatten’ and ‘babysitten’ have become the norm.

The CDU’s call to make the German language an official part of the constitution at its party congress last month has added fresh fuel to the debate. Although the motion passed easily into CDU official policy, Angela Merkel, head of the party and Germany’s chancellor, was firmly against it: “I personally don’t find it good to write everything into the constitution”, she told German television channel RTL.

Professor Ludwig Eichinger of the Institute for German Language, who spoke on Germany’s place in a globalised world at a conference on foreign policy this week, is relaxed about the debate: “Words come in and out of fashion all the time and I don’t think that anybody is questioning that Germans speak German. It wouldn’t hurt to have something like that written into the constitution, but then again I don’t think that’s a strong enough argument in its favour.”

But many German language critics would welcome the move. While they say they have no problem with the natural absorption of English vocabulary in the same way as Latin or French words have been absorbed over centuries, they object to the exaggerated way in which English has been embraced in all areas of public life.

“It causes a problem in that whole areas migrate into English, for example on the stock exchanges, in the field of computing and within some companies,” says Holger Klatte, director of the Association for the German Language (Verein für Deutsche Sprache). “It’s not just whole sections of the population who can’t speak English who are then shut out, it means that in those areas hardly any new German phrases develop, that German is overtaken and loses further standing.”

The Federation of German Consumer Organisations specifically attacked advertisers at a recent debate, pointing to the use of English or Denglish advertising slogans which many consumers fail to understand. One of the most quoted is “Come in and find out”, used by the cosmetics chain Douglas, and interpreted by many Germans as “come in and find the exit”.

Wolf Schneider, the country’s foremost language critic, supports the idea of a constitutional change: “Yes the German language is under threat – if advertising language and business jargon continue to develop as they do, if German politicians and journalists in Brussels would rather speak bad English than good German, if German academics try to understand each other using bad English.”

But a change to the constitution may take a while in coming. No further discussions within the party or in parliament have been scheduled and the Social Democrats and Greens are opposed – any law would need a two thirds majority in parliament.

Autumn in New York, why does it seem so inviting?
Autumn in New York, it spells the thrill of first knighting
Glittering crowds and shimmering clouds in canyons of steel
They’re making me feel, I’m home

Its autumn in New York that brings the promise of new love
Autumn in New York is often mingled with pain
Dreamers with empty hands, may sigh for exotic lands
It’s autumn in New York, its good to live it again

Autumn in New York, the gleaming rooftops at sundown
Autumn in New York, it lifts you up when you’re run down
Jaded roués and gay divorcées who lunch at the Ritz
Will tell you that it’s divine

This autumn in New York transforms the slums into Mayfair
Autumn in New York, you’ll need no castle in Spain
Lovers that bless the dark on benches in Central Park
Greet autumn in New York, its good to live it again

Autumn in New York, they even wrote a song about it that was a great hit sixty years ago. Last weekend the sky was awash in blue, Manhattan at its best, with Central Park gleaming in green and only the crowds marring the views. New York has changed dramatically these last fifty years, but what city has not? The place has gotten richer, but not better as far as the quality of life is concerned. That ghastly Bloomberg midget sold the place to the highest bidders, so developers are singing his praises, not unlike bootleggers paying homage to Al Capone. Manhattan was always chic in the upper east and west sides, but bohemian and gritty and artistic downtown. No longer. The place has been airbrushed for good, a playground for Indian and Chinese billionaires, Russian molls, Arab crooks, as well as American and European money managers, corporate lawyers and international jetsetters. In other words, the place stinks with new and unacceptable money and manners. Developers are king, long live funny money.

The luxurious downtown loft spaces that used to be cheap artist studios in the Fifties and Sixties, were once failed factories and warehouses during the Forties. Economic and cultural evolution is a constant in many cities, but more so in the city that never sleeps. (In fact, it is impossible to sleep when drilling begins at 7.a.m. and one is a night owl.) Cranes are everywhere, new high rise condos sprout like weeds, a horror to end all horrors stands over Madison Avenue in midtown, like an undulating middle finger to good taste, built by a horrible man called Macklowe that I had the bad luck to go to prep school with. Empty apartments sit by the thousands, owned by zillionaires hedging their bets in case the regimes that enabled them to make their money get their comeuppance. This is no longer the city that Fitzgerald’s exuberant prose romanticized, or Gershwin’s syncopations made us jostle and throb. No siree!

Still, memories of a beautiful woman die hard, and that also goes for cities or towns. Take for example Edward Hopper’s ghostly diner that became an emblem of the city, “Nighthawks.” The painting alludes to the city’s alienation and loneliness, Hopper’s most recognizable work. The location of the diner has never been established, although folklore has it that it was on Greenwich Avenue and 11th Street. Records, however, show that only a gas station was there from the 1930’s through the 1970’s. So where was the most famous diner in the world situated? The mystery was solved some years ago by one Jeremiah Moss, a Manhattan enthusiast, who envisioned the island as a Hopper painting filled with golden, melancholy light. (A bit like the poor little Greek boy.) He discovered an interview in which Hopper himself admitted that there was no such diner, just an all-night coffee shop on Greenwich Avenue that he enlarged and simplified and thus painted the loneliness of a large city. Great stuff.

Well, all that loneliness has gone the way of high button shoes, with bakeries and curved windows and dark bricks that loom in the background all disappearing, all tumbling down to make room for glass office towers and ritzy condos. Thank God the great Hopper is not here to see the destruction. They say that the longer one has lived in Manhattan, the more one loves the vanished city, and no one loved the city more than Hopper or yours truly. And, of course, the great E.B. White, who wrote about the great gift New York bestows, “that of loneliness.”

Luncheonettes, newsstand advertisements for 5-cent cigars, automats, and bakeries aside, what I miss more than all of them put together are the places I used to escape to when school and a foreign language called English got too much: The movie palaces that resembled ocean liners from the outside, with immense pillars triumphantly reaching skywards, and smooth curves like a giant woman’s hips. They have all been torn down and replaced by shopping blocks and superstores selling those machines people look at 24/7. Today’s dreary multiplexes have replaced these wonderful over the top palaces, as today’s ghastly films have replaced those dreams one got excited about as the spectacular interiors went dark.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. What about those dark red brick four story houses that lined the avenues with their wrought iron fire escapes standing guard? So called sophisticates called the fire escapes architectural eyesores, but when was the last time any so called sophisticate got it right? Criminals ruined London in the Sixties and New York in the 2000’s, with their glass boxes and inhuman sizes. Fire escapes were beautiful to look at when I was a child, and I still identify them exclusively with the city’s streetscape. Carnegie Hall has them stretched around the back, and someone once called fire escapes “the urban equivalent of the American front porch.” Hear, hear! Norman Rockwell didn’t do too many of them, he was small town rural, but Hopper did and that’s good enough for me. Lenny Bernstein had Maria singing on a fire escape in West Side Story, and Grace Kelly climbed up one to spy on Raymond Burr in Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Poor people slept on them during the hot nights of August, and Holly Golighty sang Moon River on one. What wouldn’t I give for the glass boxes to disappear and for more fire escaped four story houses to come back? Anything and everything, I’d even forsake a threesome with Keira Knightly and Jessica Raine.

A COUPLE moves down a walkway, deep in subdued conversation. All around them trees explode with autumn color. Birds sing. Their path is dappled with leafy shadow.

To their left, on the sunny meadow, TEENAGERS throw saucers and footballs, smoke cigarettes and joints, drink beer and soda, savoring the waning hours of summer.

CLOSER ON THE COUPLE

He is WILLS KEANE, late 40’s to early 50’s, strikingly handsome, impeccably dressed, and supremely poised. At first glance he has the proud glow of a hedonist who in the war against time has been the undisputed victor.

Only a closer look hints at the toll of battle. His shoulders strain under the weight of so much repetition. His eyes are touched by regret. The lines in his face reveal an emerging disenchantment not so much with the world as with himself.

Walking at his side is a WOMAN, 30, attractive and bright. Her name is unimportant because so many have come before her and, if the past prevails, so many will come after.

She listens intently, as Wills finishes speaking —

WILLS

— and I could have waited to tell you, but I wanted to leave no room for misunderstanding.

WOMAN

Well, you certainly didn’t.

EXT. ANOTHER CENTRAL PARK WALKWAY — LATER

Still talking quietly, they pass into a more secluded area of the park–

WOMAN

No, I see how you could feel this way. Of course I do. It’s human. But what I don’t get is why you’d want to announce it so quickly. I mean, we just met. Feelings change. You don’t even know me.

WILLS

Yes, I do. She is amused by his confidence —

WOMAN

Oh, really?

WILLS

The minute I laid eyes on you. It’s the saddest thing about getting older. You know people so quickly. I even knew you’d end up hating me.

WOMAN

Well, you’re wrong. I don’t.

WILLS

(with a weary smile) Give it time.

She laughs. Then he stops. He hears something. She stops. She hears it, too. It’s a GIRL’S VOICE. He casually turns and looks, squinting into the sun.

He takes a few steps and there, between trees, he sees TWO DOZEN PEOPLE sitting on the grass and on folding chairs — most are middle-aged or older with a distinctly intellectual- bohemian look to them.

Standing and addressing them is CHARLOTTE FIELDING, 19, fair, willowy, pale, lovely in an unconventional way. She wears an eccentric hat and a vintage dress. Her bearing is upright, her gaze warm and intelligent, her voice rich with emotion —

CHARLOTTE

— and for weeks I sat by her bed and cried. I told her I loved her and I begged her not to leave me. All I could think about was what I’d lose if she died. And then one night… she was in really bad pain… I stopped thinking about myself for a second and I thought about her. (fighting tears) I stopped crying. I said goodbye. And in less than an hour Ella was gone.

The woman whispers in Wills’ ear —

WOMAN

It’s so sad.

But Wills ignores her. He watches Charlotte with keen interest, touched by the depth and sincerity of her emotion.

CHARLOTTE

I really think it’s possible to hold a person back… cry them back… from dying. That’s what I did to Ella and I’ll never do it to anyone else again. (softly) I hope no one ever does it to me.

She looks out at the group, many of whom are crying. A tear runs down her cheek. She smiles and wipes it away.

The woman, seeing Wills’ interest in the girl, whispers —

WOMAN

So what do you know about her? He knows a great deal. Or at least he thinks he does. But his answer is nonchalant —

WILLS

That she’s just a kid.

He takes the woman gently by the elbow and guides her away. He steals one last look back.

Charlotte, returning to where she was sitting, notices Wills. Their eyes meet and a charge passes between them.

Meanwhile an OLD MAN has risen from his chair —

OLD MAN

I met Ella at City College in 1938… Wills slowly turns and walks away.

The wine it was drunk, the ship it was sunk
The shot it was dead, all the sorrows were drowned
The birds they were clouds, the brides and the shrouds
And as we drew south the mist it came down

The wooded ravine to the wandering stream
The serpent he moved, but no-one would say
The depths of the waters, the bridge which distraught us
And brought to me thoughts of the ill-fated day

The temples were filled with the strangest of creatures
One played it by ear on the banks of the sea
That one was found but the others they went under
Oh the tears which are shed, they won’t come from me

The methods of madness, the pathos and the sadness
God help you all, the insane and wise
The black and the white, the darkness of the night
I see only smoke from the chimneys arise

The pilot he flew all across the sky and woke me
He flew solo on the mercury sea
The dream it came back, all about the tall brown people
The sacred young herd on the phosphorus sand

If we could take the time
to lay it on the line
I could rest my head
Just knowin’ that you were mine
All mine
So if you want to love me
then darlin’ don’t refrain
Or I’ll just end up walkin’
In the cold November rain

Do you need some time…on your own
Do you need some time…all alone
Everybody needs some time… on their own
Don’t you know you need some time…all alone

I know it’s hard to keep an open heart
When even friends seem out to harm you
But if you could heal a broken heart
Wouldn’t time be out to charm you

Sometimes I need some time…on my own
Sometimes I need some time…all alone
Everybody needs some time… on their own
Don’t you know you need some time…all alone

And when your fears subside
And shadows still remain
I know that you can love me
When there’s no one left to blame
So never mind the darkness
We still can find a way
‘Cause nothin’ lasts forever
Even cold November rain

Don’t ya think that you need somebody
Don’t ya think that you need someone
Everybody needs somebody
You’re not the only one
You’re not the only one

Sleep on and dream of Love
because it’s the closest you will get to love
poor twisted child, so ugly, so ugly
poor twisted child, oh hug me, oh hug me
one November spawned a monster
in the shape of this child who later cried
“But Jesus made me, so Jesus save me from
pity, sympathy and people discussing me”
a frame of useless limbs what can make GOOD
all the BAD that’s been done?
And if the lights were out
could you even bear
to kiss her full on the mouth (or anywhere?)
poor twisted child, so ugly, so ugly
poor twisted child, oh hug me, oh hug me
one November spawned a monster
in the shape of this child who must remain
a hostage to kindess and the wheels underneath her
a hostage to kindess and the wheels underneath her
a symbol of where mad, mad lovers
must PAUSE and draw the line
So sleep and dream of love
because it’s the closest
you will get to love
that November is a time which I must put OUT of my mind
oh one fine day
LET IT BE SOON
she won’t be rich or beautiful
but she’ll be walking your streets
in the clothes that she went out
and chose for herself

I dedicate this record the carnival to all you brothers takin long trips
down south, virginia, balitmore all round the world and your girl gets
this message that you ain’t commin’ back, she sittin back in her room, da
lights is off, she’s cryin, and then my voice comes in (pow) and this is
what i tell her for you

CHORUS

every time i make a run, girl you turn around and cry, i ask myself why
oh why, see you must understand i can’t work a 9 to 5, so ill be gone til
november, said ill be gone till november ill be gone till november, you
tell my girl yo i be gone till november, ill be gone till november ill
be gone til november, you tell my girl yo ill be gone till november,
january, february, march, april, may, i see you cryin but girl i can’t
stay ill be gone till november, ill be gone till november… and give a
kiss to my motha..

when i come back there be no time to clock, ill have enough money to buy
out the glocks, tell my brotha go to school in september so he won’t mess
up in summer school in da summer, tell my cousin jerry wear his condom
if you don’t wear condom you see a red line oh oo oo you sucka M.C.s you
got no flow i heard ya style you so so

CHORUS

I had to flick nothin and turn it in to somethin, hip hop turns to the
future of rock when i smash a pumpkin (bing) committ treason now i have
a reason to hunt you down its only right its rappers season, yea you
with the loud voice posin like your top choice, i make a hertz out of
ya rolls royce, besides i got my girl to remember and i committed that
ill be back in november.